Pain and Power
by DivineMachinations
Summary: Set between the games: the lesser evils have manifested on the human realm. During this time a potentially cataclysmic artifact is put into play.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Diablo and Diablo II are both property of Blizzard, of which this story is in no way affiliated.

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The night, a peerless black illuminate by thin silvery shafts of moonlight, echoed with the sound of steps drawing closer. It was accompanied by the rhythmical rapping of rain which flowed freely, a deluge from the eternity above, into his hair-the thick mat on his head was becoming heavy-and onto his clothes. It mixed in with the blood in his wound, that dribbled out thick crimson. It was not long before the jacket he wore was both sodden and stained.

The arch, white beneath the slivers of light, was visible through the cascading downpour. It was a half ruined construct; the ages had not been kind to its once noble stature at the fore of a wide open courtyard that reflected the ghostly white light that lit it up. The twisted towers of palace speared into the night behind him. One man was a black blot on the expansive ground. As he staggered forwards its being wobbled and blurred: threatening to disappear at the moment he gave in and hit the hard grey cobbles at his feet. He could see puddles in crevasses between the cobbles he shuffled over, now stained by drops of his blood. The red would the rippling surface and spread like a disease, contaminating the water.

Against his ribs he pressed a small ring. In its sapphire ethereality lay the fate of the world.

The cold nipped his throat as he took those shuddering breathes that sent an evanescent ghost rising in front of his eyes. The moment it hung there seemed like an eternity-the man thought he glimpsed a shape in it. A twisted, sporadic, shape-that was unquestioned-but a shape nonetheless. Then it was gone, as was its whimsical nature. His legs gave way.

So this is death? He thought. Oddly the pain no longer mattered, there was a force that he had served-one that was more than life itself. Justice. And he, in his struggles and pain, had done it a bigger duty than most whom had come before him. What made his mind leaden was that he could proceed no further with his duty; to have stolen the Herdric Ring and escaped from the Valley of Stillness only to meet death at the cusp of, the final goal: freedom. It struck him that he had gained a different type of freedom and-he knew-it would be accompanied by its own rewards. In this much lay the undeniable victory. It did not matter that they had found him.

"Dram?"

"You will never lay fingers on it," he hissed suddenly panicked. His free hand slipped to his belt, an ancient papyrus scroll was dry against his fingers. It was perfect: the newcomer would never possess the ring. Even then he stood, arrogantly, over Dram; making no move to wrest the ring from his clutches.

Magic, for a moment, crackled in the air; a thin, brilliant blue, portal lit up the area. Dram tossed the ring and disengaged the spell. It died as a shout of "no" permeated the air. Again they were alone-but this time the threat was but tangible.

"It is a unique ring, do you think that we cannot find it?" The reply was even.

"You are fools then. Do you believe the effects are as mundane as to be solely imprisoned within a single piece jewellery? Whoever wears the ring will gain its powers and it shall become nothing but the most opaque stone in the land. This world is not yours, go back to the hell hole that sent you!"

The figure, a mere silhouette, said nothing.

"You now falter at taking my life?"

"I have no need, you are dying either way. Enjoy your eternity in hell." The figure left.

Dram, ironically, died believing he had finally brought peace-repeating it to himself as he lay, life slowly seeping out of him. Cold and pain wracking his body into occasional spasms. He turned and let the rain run down his face. He knew that his martyrdom, like the rain, cleansed him-of weakness and sin.

The guards found his cadaver gazing emptily at the sun, waxen and contorted, in the morning.guards found his cadaver gazing emptily at the sun, waxen and contorted, in the morning.

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This will be a very short story, as you may have gleaned from the size of this chapter. Reviews are not only welcomed but also humbly requested: is the above a rubbish start? I hope you enjoyed this story.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A little bit of us all

Briar rubbed his arm across his nose, leaving a smear of mucus on the arm his beige top. The cold, in both its physical and environmental incarnations, had persisted far longer than Briar believed it had any right to. As he stood, one hand propping the door open, the freezing buffets of rain and wind made him grind his teeth. He wished Woger, whom was already at half a sprint, would hurry up. The night was a particularly vicious one, as if the higher powers battered down upon the land-infuriated at the world.

Times like these were when tales really began to spread. He, and every other innkeeper he had ever had the displeasure to encounter had a wealth of stories to talk of. Occasionally some animal would go berserk and attack people, he could even believe the ones about them attacking in packs. Sadly less than occasionally you would hear stories though: ones that would send chills through the backbone of even the hardiest explorer. Of tribes of pygmy demons deep in the wilderness or the dead walking the earth. There were animals around the parts that Briar recognised were almost demonic in both their visage and demeanour but most of these claims were the content of bad hyperbole. They should have been, at least, but after looking deep into the darkness of the eyes of many such storytellers Briar could, suddenly, find very little to laugh about.

Such tales were more common now than since half the population of a town the other side of the country named Tristan were killed by a treacherous bishop, in a trap that saw the downfall of the king. It was said that the church connected directly to hell, few whom lived in those parts stayed; nightmares, monsters, the stench of death hanging putrid in the air-the reason all carried the same tone. The memories of rumours alone shook Briar, a man whom had seen life throw up almost everything it possibly could throw up. When the nature of your job is talk you end up learning everything you would never want to know.

A barkeep up in Middle Hartsgrove had told him that a man had talked about how his herd had been slaughtered and gutted by what had looked like demons. A particularly disturbing one was his main rival in the area's story about how a widow had one day came into his pub claiming she had been attacked by the rotting corpse of her husband: he had disappeared four days prior. They found the corpse, run over by a cart, in the middle of town. It was not a fresh corpse-he had been dead at least three days.

Then there had been the man that had appeared yesterday. He wondered heavily into the bar, rays of the glided past him yet seemed not to touch him. He shuffled onto one of the uncomfortable stools and automatically an air of authority settles around him like an aura. Elderly, yet with type of a wiry toughness, he had ordered a drink and done nothing but stare at it. When he spoke he had a voice that demanded attention, despite a slight lisp, and somehow Briar had found himself whittling away half the day the man spouted nonsense.

"Dark times," the man had said, "are upon us my friend."

Briar had looked, warily at this man, clothed in a grey robe of rough texture that seemed to resonate implacably within his memory. He struggled to place it though.

"How would this be, milord?" he glanced at the untouched mug in front of the stranger.

"He is (the s taking on a softer 'sh' sound) moving again. Without the Horadrim to fight against him I…A deep evil haunts these times. It has already been banished once-but I doubt this alone will be enough, only destruction will fully see us free from that wrath. And my companion, the one who was responsible for saving us all-letting him his much deserved freedom may have been my greatest folly. The lesser evils that rebelled will be enslaved, of that I have no doubt. No, in fact, they are already here, doing his bidding. I can only dread to think of the machinations that may, nay, will unfold before us. Both brothers are sealed-Baal is safe within Tal Rasha's decayed mind but the insanity of the Horadric council will not hold Mephisto much longer if the Lord of Terror turns his gaze towards them, unimpeded. In truth I fear for the worst…" And so the man went on, lost in the confines of his own head.

A blue flash outside made him jump, drawing him out of the memory.

"Are you alright good sir?" Woger's immense stature turned to him as he was passing, his eyes squinting at him from his thick, hairy, scar of a monobrow.

"Jus' keep unloading the wheat lad," Briar told him severely. He wanted to retreat to a fire as soon as possible. It's just lightning, he told himself. Still, although it escaped his attention, there was no thunder or anymore flashes for the rest of the night.

Droplets fell from the sky, a constant and weak flow. The rain had eased off with the passing of the dawn yet it still tenaciously continued, a perpetual dampening of the world below. It fell onto the hard stone ground that the villagers walked, huddled in cloaks as if to ward off more than just the weather-there was a tension. Unnatural forces were stirring.

The cottage door closed itself behind Hrulin of its own volition, the wind banging it shut, as he turned around to close it himself. Hrulin stood for a moment considering the paradox, adjusting, uneasily, the large axe strapped across his back, before dismissing it. He was hungry.

The village had been hit hard by the storm: his next door neighbours' house, a small cottage like his own, was completely fine. The one opposite them had been hit badly however-it was a jagged mess, having finally caved in from the pool that had been amassing in a dent in their roof. The result in the morning was furniture and thatch sprawled sporadically around a topless house. The basic structure had held; for what little help that had been. The couple that had lived there glanced up at his hulking stature, gazing at the wreckage. Hrulin moved on wordlessly.

He could put a name to every face he passed on the street and could tell a story about them based on their expressions alone. He moved through them like a giant through these small people. The village inn stood out like he did in this village. It was the only building with two floors and the only place that was not a procession of dull monotony. As he pushed his way through the door the innkeeper nodded at him.

"Porridge again, young Hrulin?"

Hrulin merely nodded and a sat at the nearest table. He cast his mind back to the previous night.

As was nights eternal wont, darkness had taken the world and-as Hruin had lain in his bed and heard the wind whip the trees and cause the rain to dance across the roof above-he thought. A drop of water, whenever the heavens burst, would leak through the ceiling and echo its almost silent _trip-trap _against the bucket he had placed in an anticipation. Hrulin did not mind-to the contrary in fact it kept him awake, leaving him more time alone inside his own head to think. Every uninterrupted moment where his mind was free to wander and fly was greatly appreciated and savoured.

That night he had been more awake than normal and all his eyes could see was darkness. The darkness that hid. The inexorable darkness. The darkness that existed in a constant balance with light. Last night, Hrulin thought he could see that balance and his eyes were turned towards the darkness. He could not see both; he could only see one, and the one that played out was the darkness before him. There was a moment where he could see the shape of events, forming like clouds before him, where it all connected and would as surely come to pass as the _trip-trap _was endless. Of course, the next morning had left him empty of all the answers he thought he had found. The water still leaked from the ceiling.

The bowl placed in front of him, in the present, was Briar's standard issue sloppy, cream coloured, wheat grain and milk. To Hrulin, it looked appetising. Upon placing his spoon in the dish he sound it met with resistance: a hard metal object. A ring.

Wiping it down with his sleeve he stared-it was a precious stone, sapphire, subtly imbedded in an unremarkable metal ring. The large sapphire burned. The light ebbing through its complex structure formed a pattern of golden flames at its core. Unthinkingly, entranced by those flames, Hrulin placed it over his finger. It fitted, barely, squeezing his finger. With a grunt he pulled it back off again. The stone seemed to have lost all its attractiveness: it actually looked dull. He placed it one side of his bowl and continued eating.

A hand slammed down on his shoulder.

"Finish up," said his father, "we're going hunting this morning."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

The land rolled, a soft peaking of round heights followed by a gentle decent into shallow troughs. They made the land constantly at a gradient: most of the time it was too small a gradient for travellers or hunters to even tell. Hrulin had noticed though, he had felt the lapping of the waves. The ground was a yellowing green, a smearing of shrubbery across its mostly barren steppe. Moats of grass and turrets of trees clustered together at points of the horizon as if expecting attack. There was a damp mist that came with the sodden weather-it made seeing more than two meters in front of you hard. Light or dark: as of late Hrulin could never see where he was going. They would still be able to make out the shapes of animals that would be enough.

They crouched, in a low ditch, unmoving. Hrulin felt the bow, taut in his hands, quiver in anticipation. It was tightly strung and feeling the pressure. He peered down at it, worried it would snap and whiplash back against him. He dared not release it, for the moment it would take to pull it back again would be the moment he lost his kill.

His father crouched down beside him. There was a practised air about him-it was not that he was not moving: it as that he was not there. The old man who looked like he had too much skin and his wispy hair was about six and a half feet high off the ground. He always stood out. Except when he chose not to; when he was hunting you could have tripped over him. Hrulin never melded with the background. He always stood out.

A suggestion of a shadow grew in the mist. Then a shape. A deer.

_Thunk. _The air was then filled with the sound of hoof beats running as the shadows disappeared. Save for the one that lay prone.

"Great work," his father moved to inspect the still twitching carcass. "A stag, we struck lucky here! This pelt should sell well and we'll be not short of food for the next few days. Mark my words son, we'll make a grand hunter out of you."

Hrulin avoided meeting his dad's gaze.

There was a movement in the mist. Hrulin was sure…somewhere…he dismissed it.

Again. He had seen it for sure this time.

"Give me a hand here," his dad started saying, as he drew his axe. "We need to-"

A red creature, like a large dog, tore his throat out. Scarlet scythes of blood arced furiously through the air from his dads neck.

Hrulin's eyes locked on his dad's. He looked into that misty green and none of it was real. Those eyes, as ever, were alive. Those were the eyes were always there…always above him, looking down protectively. He looked into his dad's eyes and saw that he could not be dead: his father returned the gaze. How could a dead man stare? No he must be alive. Hrulin saw those thoughts, along with his dad, sink, sagging, befor collapsing onto the ground. And again; it was all real.

The demon landed deftly and turned swiftly to face Hrulin. With the same primeval savagery it leaped again. Hrulin's axe met it halfway.

Hrulin blinked as the beast collapsed, trapped in death spasms. He looked blankly at it. It thrashed wildly for moments, guttural growls filling the air: the hills, trees, bushes-they all swayed to sounds of death. He focused on that incandescent red of its hide, through the dying grunts; that red filled his world. Then it died.

Axe still firmly in his grip he stood up looked once again at his father lying on the ground. He took in the situation then sat beside his father on the ground-waiting. Waiting for his father to get up again.

The sky darkened fast and the wind grew stronger. After the death of the monster the hills had been quiet: No longer, however, as the wind's whispers grew stronger in his ears and the scuffling of animals could be heard in the distance. None came within sight.

Hrulin sat with his head in his hands. His eyes felt raw and blistering but he had no recollection if he had been crying or not. Time had taken on the form of a paradox: it had never felt so slow and yet the day had past within the intake of a breath. He knew his dad was never going to get up but he also knew, with a bitter sense of irony, that he did not believe it. Three red lines were smeared across his front; all that really remained of his father to him. Yet he could not believe. He heard a shuffling in front of himself and looked up into his father's dead eyes again. Fingers tightened around his throat.

He grabbed wildly at his axe and flailed at his father. The axe drew a bloody swathe across his fathers face, wrecking it. Red drops from his father's face, now above Hrulin, showered onto his own face. The grip tightened.

He swung at the body; it was accompanied by the _slop of blood falling across his torso. The grip tightened._

_It was different shade of red he saw now. Panic. Blind panic. He wanted, dearly, for his father to drop dead once again._

_He swung at an arm. The grip loosened, slightly, allowing Hrulin enough leverage to knock his father away. Swinging, with all his terror of death behind it, Hrulin brought his axe down on his father. The body, once again a body, slumped against him._

_Through a haze he saw himself drenched in blood, mucus; fluids he could not name from his fathers stomach. He had started of the day wearing a white vest but now he was a different colour. The thick dark colour more resembled black than red. It was everywhere on him: he could not shake it off. He pushed the body to the ground, where it landed like a doll-a hollow thump breaking the wind's whispers._

_He looked at the blade of the axe for along time before heading over the yellowing, deserted steppe, back home at a slow pace, past the demon that had killed his father and the dead deer that had been his final achievement._


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter 4:_

_The house echoed as he slammed the front door behind him. The pallid colours of crude furniture greeted him. The whole concoction was sickly to his eyes. His mother, standing quivering and staring, stutters as she talked. "What's wrong? Where is your father?" Hrulin pushed past her without looking at her._

_Inside his room he pressed his back against the door. He wanted to shut his eyes and deny everything but every time his eyelids closed he saw a green stare look back at him. Accusative. It was his father's blood that streaked down his top. It was his father's hand that had left the bruises around his throat. His own hands retraced the swelling._

_A mirror mounted on the wall. In it was a boy, monstrously tall for his age and strong. He wore plain, unassuming, dark green trousers that were covered in black smears that had not been there that morning. A white top covered his upper torso; it was more red than white. Blood was blotted on his hard featured face with eyes that stared with a fiery intensity. He gripped an axe that still dripped. Moments later it collided with the mirror._

_The axe swung again. His bed; chunks were ripped out of it by the blades arch. A shelf the boy had built with his own hands reduced to fire wood. Clothes, clean of the stains of blood, were ripped and torn by the mad swinging of the axe. A table overturned and castrated of its legs. The axe was dragged noisily through the wood of the door leaving an open gash. Through it Hrulin could be seen destroying._

_He raised his head to the roof. A stillness overtook him. Tentatively, the door opened-its gait was an indecisive one. It swung forwards as if expecting further retribution for moving, as if the horrible dervish would once again resume. His mother made her way into the room._

"_Hrulin? W-what are you doing? What's happened to your father?"_

_Hrulin brought his eyes down to, finally, look at her. Moments later he left the house: blood marred his visage more than it had before._


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5:_

_Villagers stopped, aghast. Eyes followed him as he walked down the road. Hrulin's eyes never left the path in front of him and walked through the village. The villagers were ghosts: he could not see them-invisible presences haunting the space around him. He may not have seen any of them but he still felt their glares. It seemed that the force of the glared and the sound of his footsteps filled up the world._

_A house-the furthest away from the village centre; it hung onto the village like water going over the edge of a waterfall before the plummet began-loomed. It was, unlike the other houses, a construct almost purely of wood. Nobody could say why it broke the mould. It was rumoured that both the house and its inhabitant had been around much longer than the village. Hrulin had heard the gossip, the mythology, that had built up around it-quietly internalising it all. He had seen the house a few times, but the image that persisted came straight from a nightmare. He saw the house ashen, as if burning without fire; slowly it crumbled and scattered in the wind._

_The door was rough and grainy under his finger tips as he pushed it open. It slid open._

_Inside glowed a dying embers on two blackened logs. The room had no windows; the glow of the fire and column of sunlight that Hrulin stood in were what kept the room from total darkness. It was a tidy room, of what he could perceive: a bed against the wall to his left, a small round table near it. Bottles of strangely coloured liquids and a large amulet occupied the table. A rug lay in the middle of the room; the wooden floor boards provided a parameter around it. A chair at the back, in which a female figure was only dimly lit up by the fireplace. None of the sunlight touched her._

_Hrulin shut the door and hefted his axe._

"_You would do well to lower that," she spoke from the back. With only the fire he could see a woman, half veiled in shadow, he could see it the red light dance across the silver silks of her dress. Her face was cold but beautiful. "I know why the darkness seeks you. That creature and your dad will not be the last. It will begin, only a trickle, however when the flood is upon you you will choke. In the jungle people eat creatures from the water by cooking them alive: at first the water will be cool and the creature will not mind but as the temperature is turned up gradually they do notice until agony, then death, is upon them. You believe humans to be above them? So lower your axe and listen: you cannot hurt me anyway."_

_Hrulin lowered his axe._

"_My husband, beneath us, works to undo the power of hell. He looks to, once and for all, cut away the gateway to hell and live without for of the great evil. A great power is rising, one of the lesser evils, Duriel, has turned his eyes upon you and the Prince of Pain will hesitate not in destroying you. The prime evils will soon be abroad no longer-you can help stop this. Under a trapdoor in this house a path will take you to him I beseech to hurry with your decision; it is likely that his safety has already been compromised. Monsters in the deep may already lurk. You have a choice: hop out of the pan, out of the water. Or die, shrivelled in inevitability."_

_A section of flooring shuddered before springing up. The glow that protrude from the trapdoor was akin of the one in the cabin, only more intense._

"_Choose," said the woman, face bathed in the glow._


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6:_

"_A scent of slaughter, pungent and fresh-more than darkness occupies these walls."_

_The trapdoor slammed hut above him and instantly he knew there could be no turning back. No; he had known from the moment he stepped in the witch's cottage. From the moment his dead father had tried to kill him._

_Torches, tacked sloppily to the wall, projected the eerie glow. The initial cavern was at least as big as the room he had proceeded from and the light that had seemed more intense upstairs was rather dim, still metamorphosing the air into a sickly orange. The cavern showed no other signs of human inhabitation. Ants, across the roof, crawled in their droves; hundred of tiny black spots scurrying through orange air against a rough grey roof. The roof and walls merged in a curve: there was no definitive cut off between where it became walls; yet both roof and walls existed._

_The soft crunches of his footfalls added to a silence that was filled with small noises. Only one perceivable exit lay to the cavern and he started down it. Quickly the walls closed in, he would not be able to swing his axe in that passage should he need to defend himself. Through his impassive mindset came a thought that cut into him as if fire. There was another sound growing in the passageway. Breathing. And not his own._

_The passage split off in two directions. One continued onwards whilst the other deviated at a right angle. The second was completely black, no torches punctuating the walls. The ants on the roof did not proceed down that passage. The breathing rung clear-for a time he had told himself it was just imagination. Hurriedly, he set off walking directly forward._

_He encountered other turns, other splits. Always, one was lit and one was not. Always, the ants crawled in one direction only. This was the path he unerringly followed. As he walked and time began to lose focus each sound became more acute: the quiet burning of torches, the shuffling of small animals, his own breathing. But the sound of the other, hoarse whispery, breathing overruled it all._

_In front or behind? It was closing in on him, sending ripples of goose bumps across his arms, neck, legs. Was it looking for him?_

_A noise. From behind. Hrulin sped up._

_Occasionally he would come across torches completely burned out. They were subtly weakening also, the rock corridors were loosing definition. More and more did the walls appear like shadows and the roof above him a great moving mass of shadows. His footsteps were growing louder as he sped up, from soft padding to loud thumps._

_Another, definitely behind him. It sounded like the clatter of a hoof._

_The time between his own breathes was shortening and they became higher and louder. He was almost running. The very darkness around him was rearing towards him. He tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry._

_He could hear it clearly now. An almost trotting. Behind him, still in the distance: a figure. It had antlers and eyes glowing like coals. He ran._

_And the wall hit him. The path forked off into two more tangent paths. Running straight forward and peering backwards he collided with it. A gasp escaped his lips as he consequently hit the floor. Scrambling to his feet it was on top of him._

_It also carried an axe, with a larger blade, and swung it vertically into his shoulder. Then they were grappling._

_It possessed strength that fitted its stature. Hrulin was pinned under a large hairy body. He pulled his axe in front of himself defensively. The creature threw itself on top of him, trying to smother him. Then it was dead: impaling itself on his axe. A scream echoed around the cave._

_It took the remainder of Hrulin's strength to push off the hairy body, never letting go of his axe. His shoulder cried out as he did so, his whole left side was sent into spasm, he had never felt it so hot. The adrenaline pulsed, it was the only reason he could stand. He might as well have died: he moved almost as if undead, animated by an external proxy. In a infirm, sporadic, gait he pushed himself deeper into the unknown. He moved as if controlled by a limp handed puppet master._

_Red ran down his arm and dripped onto the cave floor._


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7:_

_A light, white in the centre of the orange haze, shone through a doorway. Parts of his mind clicked together as he loped along . He could things, voices, but was he dreaming? Was any of it real? Would he wake from the darkness to see daylight stream through his window once again? His past was vague to him, like the way the torches fogged his vision-every step lost more clarity. All that met his eyes were the shadowy walls and bright doorway._

_Voices._

"_My master has powers-"_

"_Beyond my belief; believe me, your mate Dram has given me all that chat before."_

_He could see in the room, too bright for individual details however. A man was on his knees. The necromancer._

"_A wise man once said that a hunter does not chase: a hunter waits. I already know that the ring is on its way down here, I know you are needed as an interim. What exactly is this relic anyway?"_

_The necromancer spat._

"_It was far too highly organised a robbery for you to have just stole some mouldy artefact from that museum. Your colleague made the mistake of presuming I already knew, hence the information I do know. Did you steal it merely so it would not come to our attention? Dram was, all in all, a bad choice, should that be so. Did you not consider, for a moment, that we were keeping an eye on him?" The man, his clothes as odd as his manner of speech and accent, walked confidently into view._

"_Scum," barked the necromancer._

"_He has no bearing on the matter anymore," said an elderly voice, "deal with him as you have been paid to do."_

_Hrulin had heard enough. Raising the axe he bellowed and charged. The figure moved and struck. Hrulin fell._

_He delivered a blow to the side of the necromancer's head for good measure._

"_Kill them both." The old man was beginning to grate his nerves._

"_That was not part of the deal," the figure turned to the his companion, lingering nervously at the back of the room. It was as if he believed that the assortment of the necromancer's equipment would corrupt him should he move close enough. No, the figure thought looking into the old man's eyes, it is you he is scared of._

"_I guess," the old man drew himself up with regal bearings despite the frailty, "we come to the issue of payment."_

_Issue was the right word. "Whom do you serve?"_

"_I am sorry?"_

"_I am pretty sure you understood me old man."_

"_We do not concern ourselves with gateway skippers."_

_That is their name for us? The man thought it was oddly appropriate. "I am afraid that we do not work on a gold basis. What you have paid is not in material goods."_

_The old man eyed the two unconscious bodies. He seemed to be preparing himself for negotiations. There would be no negotiations._

"_You need the body, don't you? The ring is useless now. Ring's are made to be worn, they are not distinct entities."_

_Still silence from the other end. The man seemed to find that people were not responding well to him that day._

"_You are wearing a Horadrim uniform, are you not?"_

_A worried expression. Good._

"_Correct me if I am wrong, but there is only one member of the Horadrim. And he is not you."_

_Flames shot out from the man's finger tips, engulf both bodies in flames. His skin crawled back across his face, revealing a ragged mismatch of tissue still plastered to a stained and cracked skull. Embers danced in its eyes like the phoenix in flight._

"_It is a sin," said the skeletal figure, fading into obscurity, "to kill a god."_

_Then he was alone. Except for the screaming of the two men on fire. The large boy whom had worn the ring came screaming towards him; this time without his axe. The flames crawled and seeped over him like a flesh consuming parasite. The boy looked more like an it as he approached the stranger in a nightmarish dance: the man could see the boy's lips being burnt away before his eyes, skin blackening. The screams no longer seemed human._


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8:_

_He had managed to save the boy, now head to tow in bandages, but it the thought occurred that he may only have saved him physically. Morton placed the burnt shell on what he knew to be the boy's bed. It shown signs of battle though, as if it had been attacked physically before hand: the cuts looked like cuts from the boy's axe. They were flecked with blood and wider than sword cuts. The rest of the room had been destroyed in a similar fashion, it was a nightmarish vision, but, then again, that suited the boy. It was bathed in an afternoon light that only made to highlight the carnage. He had best not linger: should any villagers find him here it could turn nasty. He knew everything that had happened to the boy and felt icy guilt grip him for his powerlessness._

"_The necromancer," Morton said, "he was the one whom brought your dad back from the dead. They tracked you down and sent their beasts after you. In your eyes they are dead, remember it and make sure it stays that way."_

_The boy, a wreck of the tall and broad shouldered young man Morton had caught sight of earlier, was gone. But he would have to turn his back on the boy now. He was part of an organisation that did not belong to this world and his search had not turned over their prize. He had a duty to more than this world; let alone this boy. The necromancer was probably dead, incineration-said to be the most painful of deaths-for a servant of the Prince of Pain. A fitting end. The witch had taken flight, tidings having reached her ears before he could stop her. Not that it mattered: she had failed Duriel. Her death would be immanent._

"_You're home now. I wonder if you ever desired adventure, glamour, a challenge? Well I guess the ultimate tragedy lies in that you got exactly that. Home-that's what I fight for, that's what drives me. You've paid a steep price, but, if I am going to be honest, there is something in me that envies you. You have beautiful scenery outside your window, friendly neighbours through your door. I guess you were more than just unlucky. Hah, what am I saying? I…"_

_He wanted to say a lot, more than he could. The situation demanded grandiloquence and he gabbled incoherent nonsense. The boy lay in an unrelenting silence; maybe he could not physically reply, maybe he chose not to. It was now a cracked mind and words were wasted._

"_Get me out of here Den," he said. _

_He glanced once more around the room, amazed that such a bright place could be so dark. Then the warp took him._

_He never returned to that village, the disparate wonderer. But should have ever fancied a visit in the future he would have found nought but corpses. The evil that came brought about a rampage that left the air thick with the smell of rotting flesh and ravens cries. Steeped in blood and the flames of corruption stood a figure, arms malformed into the shape of crude axes. Every second he eschewed screams of the agony of flesh and metal merged into two twisted limbs. His figure obscured by bandages. Red bandages._


End file.
